


What Remains

by Shamelessly_Radiant



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 16:31:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12062823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shamelessly_Radiant/pseuds/Shamelessly_Radiant
Summary: Snapshots. After the war, they mourn. All is not well, but maybe it is well enough.





	What Remains

**Author's Note:**

> Nearly abandoned, and not really finished.

**_i._ **

_The last moments of a person are not nearly as important as spending time with them while they are alright, but somehow, they feel so huge. They feel like validation._

It was nearly over now.

He noticed it in the shallow breaths she took, in the way her body pressed heavier into the bed.

Before he could stop himself, he asked the question that had been burning on his tongue, perhaps his whole life, and that he had never dared to ask.

"Am I my father's son?" His voice cracked, and he was near crying, but he was not ashamed.

"Oh, Neville," she smiled, up at him, a hand reaching up to take his own, "You could never be your father's son"

And it hurts. Like a whip on his bare back. _Even now?_ He wants to ask. After all this time and he is still not enough?

But then she speaks again:

"You are _so much more_ than that, and I am _so proud_ of you"

His smile could make the clouds stop rain, but that smile vanishes from his face a second later, when the hand around his own relaxes.

"Grandma? Grandma?"

She looks pained, but still she smiles, and then, whispers her final words.

"I love you, Neville"

Her eyes go out of focus then, and never does she hear his response.

A pair of arms comes up, surrounding him with a sweet sent, and he instinctively returns the embrace, his body seeking the warmth.

"She did not hear me, she did not hear me" he sobs into her hair, and it is this nonsensical matra he latches onto, repeating it over and over again.

"Shh, Neville" she murmurs, "It's all right, she knew"

Tomorrow he'll have to arrange the funeral, and try to get a permission so his parents can attend. But for now, he simply cries and let's Hannah hold him, still not letting go of his grandmother's  hand.

**_ii._ **

_What was lost can never be recovered, but comfort can be found, quiet peaceful moments, remembering, and smiling, through all the happy memories._

It was a simple note, from a magical Chinese cookie, and Mrs. Weasley had snorted at it, crumbling it up and vanishing it, but the words still remained in her head.

Now, she finally understood them.

It was a quiet summer night, with bright stars shining above them. They were sitting at the table, _all of them_ , even George, though the space next to him remained empty.

Bill had just taken a big spoon of ice cream when he suddenly started making cat noises. All around the table a farm broke loose, only Molly and Arthur seemed unaffected. George ate his ice cream calmly, but with a glint in his blue eyes.

Ginny was barking, waving her wand wildly at George, no doubt with an _excellent_ bat bogey hex ready, but it never struck.

Charlie was booing like a cow, Ron was eating like a pig; (Molly had to check twice to make sure he had been _really_ affected as well.)

Percy was trying to not show anything, but he licked at his water as dignified as a cat would.

After a few minutes of this, Molly hid her smile and told George to rectify it. George did so, with a wave of his wand.

"It was Fred's little project" he said softly, and the atmosphere at the table stilled. Everyone had their eyes wide open, because Fred's name had never been uttered in George's presence, it had barely been said at all actually and yet-

Somehow, somehow it made perfect sense for George to be the first to speak of the lost sibling, the lost son.

Eventually Bill moved, breaking the tense stillness, and grabbed a gnome by its collar, stopping his process of creeping on the table to steal the chicken.

He swung it away, and another gnome bit his calf in retaliation.

Everyone laughed at his curse, and then suddenly, memories of Fred started flowing. _His gnome tossing contests, the flying car, Gred and Forge, the bangs, the trick wands, the candies, the jokes, his laugh, Fred, Fred, Fred._

There was laughter, and there were tears, and when Mrs. Weasley looked up, she swore the stars shone brighter.

And finally, finally, she understood the note.

**_iii._ **

_(Silent heroes)_

_Here lies, Severus Snape_

_Hogwarts' bravest Headmaster._

It is completely disrespectful, and if looks could kill he would be dead twenty five times over, but he laughs. Standing in the grave yard, he laughs so much he shakes.

Because he knows, his old Professor would've hated that inscription.

 _Bravery._ Such a Gryffindor trait, is almost an insult to a Slytherin.

Almost, because Draco knows that he had wished more than once to posses it.

Eventually, war ends. But it does not determine who won, just who is left. And the side that has more abundance? Those call _themselves_ the winners. The others? They just fade away.

Draco thinks about the war almost every day still, and he thinks about Harry Potter even more. It is not how he used to think about him before, no, it is with a grudging respect because the boy beat the old snake and saved his life in the process.

But, now, now that he knows the full story behind Severus Snape (and Potter's _mother,_ off all persons. A Mudblood, but he has never uttered the word after the war, and he finds himself strangely uncaring of blood now. ) he thinks that perhaps, if someone is born _destined_ to be a hero, it is kind of easy to be it.

However, someone who is born with the expectation of not being a hero, and rises above that to be a hero anyway, in _silence_?

Silent heroes, he decides, are perhaps more worthy of the title 'hero' than anyone else.

Perhaps, in that light, Severus Snape would not have minded the inscription that much.

He stands, contemplates the headstone for a moment, and then snorts, shaking his head and turning away.

No, Snape would have hated the inscription anyways. Which Slytherin ever wants to be called brave?

**_iv._ **

_"When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough."_ (-[Maurice Maeterlinck](http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/maurice_maeterlinck.html))

She sits alone in the dark, nursing a glass of red wine.

Tomorrow she will continue this life, she will pretend nothing ever happened, she will pretend what she has always pretended: that she is all right.

It is a trait of her family, after all, to give nothing away. (It is also a trait of her family to be pure, but she has failed in that a long time ago)

She has failed at many things.

She has failed many _people._

Suddenly, she sees red hot with fury, so she stands on shaky legs and throws away her glass as hard as she can. It shatters against the other wall of her living room, and the seeping liquid looks like blood.

It is not enough, it is not enough, itisnotenoughnotenoughnotenough _not ENOUGH-_

She tears, she smashes, she throws, she breaks. Now there really is blood, running from her hands, after she cut herself on a vase but still she keeps going and still it is _not enough._

It will never be enough, will it, though?

She sinks down to the floor, and pays the jagged pieces under her no mind. Instead she cries, and it is loud and ugly and raw. Because it hurts, and things that hurt never come out smoothly.

And it is not only the recent happenings that hurt her. She has been hurting for a very long time now, and no one ever has known. She has carried it with her, sometimes forgotten, sometimes painful, and always bitter.

Like a cancer. Slowly killing her from the inside out.

Now she cries, for her family.

Her _whole family._

Her parents, who she never saw since that faithful night. She still remembers the last word she ever said to them: "I would rather be a blood traitor than a _Black_ " she had snarled, making the word Black filthier than Mudblood, and true to her worth, she had never been a Black again.

She had also not been with her parents on their death bed, and had not said goodbye on a funeral she had not been invited to. She only remembered the hurt on her mother's face, and the disgust on her father's.

"Good," he had answered, and nodded slowly, "from now on, there will only be two Black daughters. Andromeda Black never existed, and you mean. _Nothing. To. Us."_

Behind her father's back, her mother had half extended her hand at her, and Narcissa had looked, wide eyed. Bellatrix had turned away, but to this day, Andromeda swore she had seen a gleam on her eldest sister's cheek.

And she had turned away, strode through a door she would never enter again. Left her sisters too.

And now.

Her husband.

Her daughter and her husband.

She has lost so much.

And the worst of it all? The tears she cries are not only of love, no, also of regret. She cries, for all the years that went by. She cries, because she never got to say goodbye to her parents, and never saw them before they died.

She cries, because her sister went mad, and the other one will maybe lose her family too, if they are send to Azkaban.

The vindictive side of her rejoices, the regretful part wants to reach out to her. (After everything, it will be Draco that reaches out to her first, but she does not know this yet.)

Tomorrow, she will be strong, for Teddy, her grandson.

Today, she cries, mourns, grieves, lets it all out, and lets the darkness take away her pain and sorrows, her desperation and anguish, hopes it will take away her bitterness too.

**_v._ **

Was it worth it?

_Harry Potter vanquishes the Dark Lord._

_The Boy-who-lived is the Boy-who-conquers._

_He who must not be named is no longer._

Every article depicts his courage, the victory, _the tragic beauty._

Tragic beauty, his arse.

(they conveniently forget a time not long ago, when he was The Boy-who-was-mad)

In the end, war does not determine who won, only who _is left._

And so many are _not._

He thinks Dobby, He thinks Fred, Tonks, Lupin; he thinks Dumbledore, Hedwig, _Snape_. Going further back he thinks Sirius, Moody, _his parents._

Those are the ones who are going to be visible on tombstones. Maybe on a list in the papers, that no one will _actually read._

But what of the people behind that? The nameless muggles, the tortured ones, the ones who lost everything?

He thinks Andromeda Tonks, he thinks George and his family, Neville and his parents, _and so many others._

All because one boy, one boy wanted to find a place in this words.

He remembers Dumbledore:

_"You don't pity him, do you, Harry?"_

_"No"_ he had said, but actually he does. He knows very well how it is like to grow up an orphan, parentless, unloved. To want to find your place in this world.

He thinks Tom Riddle knew too.

He thinks that they were maybe not that different at all.

Still.

Was it worth it?

.

.

.

.

.

(yes)


End file.
